More on 1880s pronunciation

Most of the pronunciations given in the Dictionary of Blunders are what one would expect for 1880, and show that the arguments about what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ are very much the same as today:

ab-do’-men, not ab’-dŏm-ěn (OED1 agrees with this, but OED2 gives initial stress before second syllable stress, although many medical people use ab-do’-men, which corresponds to the Latin quantities)

a-kū’-men, not ak’-ŭ-men (OED2 gives second syllable stress before initial stress, which corresponds to the Latin quantities)

al-bu’-men not al’-bum-en (OED2 does not recognise initial stress, although I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone British say /ælˈbjuːmən/)

bĭtu’men not bĭt’-u-men (OED2 gives second syllable stress before initial stress, which corresponds to the Latin quantities, but current British pronunciation dictionaries all indicate second syllable stress as American)

CHIVALRIC is pronounced shiv’-ǎl-rik not chiv-ǎl’-rik (OED1 and OED2 have second syllable stress first, and also allow initial /tʃ/)

CONTRIBUTE is pronounced kon-trĭb’-ute, not kon’-trĭb-ute. (Interesting that the initial stress was being heard even then)

DECADE is pronounced dĕk’-āde, not dēk’-ade (OED1 gives only /ˈdekəd/ – as the BBC Advisory Committee was also recommending nearly 50 years later)

LAMENTABLE. The accent in this word is on the first syllable, lăm’-ĕnt-able. (Clearly, he was hearing second syllable stress )

LIBRARY. This word is often mispronounced li’-bar-ay, instead of li’-bra-ry. (No change today)

7 Comments

Thanks for this. It’s the sort of thing I need to help my clients open their minds about “correctness” or “propriety” of speech. I have six or seven editions of Daniel Jones’s English Pronouncing Dictionary through the years, starting with the first, and ending with the latest Cambridge edition. It’s very interesting to track the RP pronunciations of words such as controversy through the years.

If you mean pronouncing /r/ as a labiodental approximant, I don’t know about the 1800s but it is pretty common now in Britain. I grew up doing it myself until I got teased about it in university and decided to change.